April 21, 1987: Feds OK Patents for New Life Forms

1987: The U.S. Patent and Trademark office announces it will begin accepting patent applications for animals.

A year later, Harvard University was awarded the first such patent — the Oncomouse, a mouse researchers produced to be especially susceptible to getting cancer.

Three decades later, the government has issued about 800 animal patents –- on everything from cats, cattle, chimps, dogs, fish and horses to sheep. They are used in most every field, from cosmetics to medicine. Some even blend humans and animals.

There are pigs with human blood, and rabbit eggs fused with DNA to help crippled mice walk.

The American Anti-Vivisection Society, which staunchly abhors animal patenting, estimates that up to 50 million animals are used in genetic engineering experiments annually in the United States alone — all in a bid to create what the group calls “unnatural new animals.”

The government has rejected some of the most controversial proposed patents, including the “humanzee,” a half man, half chimp. It was denied in 2005 because it was too human.

The patent office’s 1987 decision said the government “now considers non-naturally occurring nonhuman multicellular living organisms, including animals, to be patentable subject matter.”

One of the most controversial approved animal patents centered on the University of Texas’ treatment of beagles. The university won a patent in 2002 to infect the dogs with mold, if they lived through weeks of daily radiation doses. After a public outcry, the university disclaimed the patent in 2004 .

Another controversial approval patented rabbits whose eyes were glued open so researchers could test corneal medications. Four years after the government issued the patents to Biochemical and Pharmacological Laboratories of Japan, they were rescinded in 2009 on grounds of “obviousness.”